Suu Kyi Jailed For Public Unrest
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – Myanmar’s ousted elected leader, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to four years imprisonment Monday on charges including “inciting public unrest.”
The sentence by a Myanmar court was the first in a series of verdicts that could keep the 76-year-old detained for the rest of her life.
Later Monday, authorities confirmed that junta chief Min Aung Hlaing would reduce Suu Kyi’s sentence by two years and keep her detained in her current undisclosed location rather than moving her to prison.
She received two years “for incitement” against the military and another two for breaching a natural disaster law relating to the COVID pandemic, added junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun.
Former president Win Myint was also jailed for four years on the exact charges but will also serve half that time and was not yet taken to prison, he said.
The reduction does not substantively change Suu Kyi’s fate, as faces more severe charges with potential life sentences, observers said.
WEST CONCERNED
The United States, Britain, the United Nations, and the European Union all condemned the verdict, describing it as political. “The military regime’s unjust conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi and repression of democratically elected officials are further affronts to democracy and rule of law in Burma,” aid U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, using another name for the country.
“The proceeding that today convicted Aung San Suu Kyi should not be confused with a trial — it is theatre of the absurd and a gross violation of human rights,” added Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on Myanmar.
Monday’s closed-door trial in Naypyidaw, the capital, underscored the punitive treatment that the ruling junta imposes on Suu Kyi, whom the military previously held under house arrest for nearly two decades.
After her release in 2010, she led her party to victories in quasi-democratic elections in 2015 and 2020, before the military seized power in February, again detaining Suu Kyi.
More than 1,000 people, including Christians, have died since the latest unrest in the troubled Buddhist-majority Asian nation.
The army ruling the nation has also been linked to attacks in areas of predominantly Christian ethnic groups, with thousands fleeing towards neighboring Thailand.
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